Note from June Aochi Berk
Fedde Middle School from Hawaiian Gardens in South Central L.A. presented their project on the “Executive Order 9066: Rights Denied Over Race.” They came to the Japanese American National Museum to research their project. On the day they came to do research at the Museum, I happened to be at the Museum’s Democracy Forum Theater for the “Hidden Legacy” Documentary screening (I’m in the documentary because I performed Japanese classical dance in Camp). The girls from Fedde Middle School were in the audience and later came up to me to interview me about my experiences as a young junior high student in the Internment Camp at Rohwer, Arkansas. I was honored to be interviewed. (I told them a favorite past-time was to make bracelets and necklaces out of watermelon and cantaloupe seeds, color them with nail polish, and out of dried peach seeds, we would make rings, turtles and rabbit pins.
I was not able to see their exhibit in Riverside last weekend, since the Junior High School students presented on Friday night and we were there on Saturday for the Senior High School projects. (My granddaughter Alex’s team was in the finals for their project “The Bomb Heard ‘Round the World.”
But I am so happy to learn that Fedde Middle School won Co-Championship for Junior High Schools!
Now the team from Fedde will be traveling to the National Finals at the University of Maryland, College Park, on June 15-18, 2014. I think the winners eventually get invited to the White House!
I am so excited for these kids from Fedde Middle School on their Research Project on the Japanese Internment Camps!!!
June Aochi Berk
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